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Level of description

Extent and medium

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

Gloria Davis was the first anthropologist hired by the World Bank. She specialized in Southeast Asia, receiving her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1975 with a dissertation on Parigi: A Social History of the Balinese Movement to Central Sulawesi, 1907-1934. She then taught anthropology for three years at Yale University. In 1978 Davis joined the World Bank's Indonesia Transmigration and Land Settlement Program, where she became part of the team assessing the Bank's support for transmigration projects in Indonesia. This led to the publication of the major report, Indonesia Transmigration Program Review, in 1981. In 1984 Davis became the senior operations office in the agriculture division of the East Asia and Pacific Region. She participated in various missions, often to Indonesia but also to Fiji in 1984. During this period she lead the review of the entire Indonesia transmigration sector, culminating in a major report, Indonesia Transmigration Sector Review, in 1986. Following the general reorganization of the World Bank in 1987, Davis became the chief of the Environment Division of the Asia Technical Department. In 1990 she wrote another major study, Indonesia: Sustainable Development of Forests, Land and Water. She became chief of the Social Policy and Resettlement Division in the Environment Department in 1993 and director of the Social Development Department from 1997 until 2000. Davis retired from the Bank in 2000 but continued to serve as a consultant until 2004. Gloria Davis was born in 1943 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She died in 2005.

Repository

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Donated to the World Bank by Robert Crooks, the widower of Gloria Davis, 19 April 2005.

Content and structure area

Scope and content

The papers relate almost exclusively to Indonesia. They include her dissertation and its background data survey sheets. The papers also include background information on all the Indonesia projects in which Davis was involved between 1978 and 1986, including correspondence, subject files, data survey sheets, statistics and computer printouts of statistical analyses. The files on one project in Fiji are included. Davis obtained many official Indonesian government documents during the years when her focuswas on Indonesia. These are found both in correspondence and data files as well as in the set of reports in Bahasa Indonesian. Davis maintained a set of speeches, articles and monographs, mainly about Indonesia, that were written by colleagues. She also maintained sets of publications on Indonesian topics from various research institutions in Indonesia and other countries. The files do not include correspondence with family and friends. No photographs are included. The files are of interest primarilyto students of the history of Indonesia and to the study of migration. The raw data collections are particularly valuable.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Duplicate copies of publications were destroyed.

Accruals

Accruals are not expected.

System of arrangement

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Records are subject to the World Bank Policy on Access to Information. Records relating to the International Finance Corporation are closed under the IFC Policy on the Disclosure of Information.